by The Behrg
Where was Donavon?
The chaos in the building was at its apex, bodies everywhere – running, fleeing, others clearly unmoving. Overturned equipment and fallen logs. Laborers trampled by others attempting to escape. The air was thick with heavy mulch and sawdust, the rain of dirty particles that never fell but continued to float indefinitely.
“Donavon?” Faye yelled, choking on the air.
A loud crack sounded behind her, metal creaking, breaking. She turned in time to see the assembly line tilt toward her, its long tracks and metal beams like arms preparing for an embrace. One that would be her last.
Verse XXV.
Dugan rolled from the shelving unit he had landed against, covering his head with his fall. Tiny pebbles of concrete rained down like scattered hail.
Hospital beds screeched against the tiled floor as they slid, clanging against metal cabinets. Overhead lights wavered as they swung, their intended targets no longer stationary while beneath them bags of fluid burst, IV lines breaking. A steel pipe fell from the ceiling, clanging against a bed or cabinet.
A few yards away the native child directed his mad orchestra, arms outstretched, his words spilling out in that monotonous chant. It seemed to Dugan that the child’s bed was the only thing not moving, as if the epicenter of this earthquake, the eye of the storm, began and ended with him.
Another hospital bed had slid from somewhere, colliding with the young native’s, the lifeless body of an adult male lying in a heap of sheets. Dugan might just be able to reach it.
He turned at the sound of a woman’s cry – a heavy white pedestal that reminded Dugan of a dentist’s X-ray machine, toppled toward her. Oso appeared, barreling into the falling machine, its crane-like arm barely missing the woman scientist. It crashed against the ground, sending tiles flying.
The woman stood on shaky legs, supporting herself on Oso when a metal drawer flying through the air struck her in the face.
She went down, legs no longer shaking.
Oso caught sight of Dugan and with his lips pointed toward the child. Dugan nodded. He looked about for Morley but couldn’t find him. The tranquilizer the poor woman had found could have been anywhere by now.
Fortunately there were other ways to knock someone unconscious.
Dugan leapt toward the second bed, grabbing hold of the railing. The earth rolled beneath him, his body momentarily rising in the air. A naked native woman, missing both of her eyes, collided into him as he hit the ground. Her limp body slung halfway beneath the bed. Those sightless dark sockets seemed endless.
He wondered on what page of his book he’d find her. And also what Morley had done with her eyes.
Breaking his gaze from those black pits, he rose, leaning heavily against the bed. He used the rail to make his way around, the end of this bed perpendicular to the child’s. If the young native was aware of him, he didn’t make it known.
As Dugan reached the end of the bed he noticed a capped syringe caught within the sheets.
The tranquilizer!
The rattle of a tray or nearby table being overturned caused him to duck. Instruments flew like shrapnel from a grenade, something slicing into his left calf. Other objects struck him in the back and shoulders, several whirling past. He braced himself for something heavy to find its way to him. It never came.
He opened his eyes and reached out to grab the syringe when the body of the male native lying in the bed jolted upright. Bloodshot eyes met Dugan’s, mere inches away.
The thin native opened his mouth – sharp teeth that had been filed to pointy ends jutting forward, a line of spit hanging from the roof to the bottom of his mouth.
Dugan remembered this one.
With one flick of the thumb he uncapped the syringe and brought it up, plunging it deep into the native’s neck. His eyes lost their focus and then his body fell back toward the bed.
Amidst the popping of glass and the sound of another cabinet crashing, Dugan barely registered the cough ripping from his throat.
Verse XXVI.
The screams of men, women, and children.
They often came to Remmy in his sleep, whether he had partaken of the forbidden fruit or not. And while he had finally shot himself full of that sweet yet damning nectar, he recognized that these cries weren’t echoing in his head, but coming from the neighboring assembly hall.
Panic. Fear. Hopelessness.
Not the feelings one should ascribe to finding in a church.
He knelt beside the toilet in his quarters, his arms wrapped around the porcelain throne, as he listened to the destruction taking place. Loud thumps and clangs; pews sliding, crates from the storage room breaking, and – whether he wanted to admit it or not – the sound of bodies colliding. Falling. Breaking. And the wails that accompanied their shock and pain.
He cringed at the thought of children being tossed to and fro, like a ship with no rudder, on the waves of a sea.
An angry sea.
From an ancient and angry God.
It’s my fault. I’ve failed you.
A shelf broke somewhere in his room, books clattering to the ground with the sound of a vase shattering.
Please, don’t punish them for my mistakes!
The ground kicked; Remmy was thrown forward into the bowl, his forehead connecting with a solid thud. Water sloshed out as if children were inside, splashing and playing in the bowl.
Never again. I swear, I will forsake it all if you spare these people.
“Please …” Remmy croaked.
But he knew his words were in vain. What good were the promises of an addict to a god who had heard them a thousand times before?
Verse XXVII.
In the time it took for the section of assembly line to go from tilting to falling, Faye was able to draw in a single breath. Within that breath thousands upon thousands of regrets swarmed over her, a colossal infestation seeking to rip apart her mind. Black gnats, darker than night, tearing at memories and filling the gaping holes with their defecation of doubts.
She should never have come here, should never have broken Frantz’ trust, should never have sought to do something so much bigger than herself.
Why had she thought she could change the world? And that that change would make her feel again? Fill the black hole she forced herself to squirm out of, every morning of every day?
And then the gnats tore deeper, their vociferous buzzing increasing in volume and strength.
She is a little girl again, brushing her teeth before bed, walking past her parents’ room to tuck herself in. Her door, which always creeps closed, propped open with a pair of sparkly pink Keds shoes. The lights off in her parents’ room. Dark downstairs. Six years old and home alone, but routine – there has never been time to be a child.
Then a startling noise from downstairs.
Glass. Breaking.
Faye, unsure whether to stay put or go investigate.
The silent collaboration of her dolls nestled on a shelf.
She has her father’s spirit and her mother’s lack of fear, the rustling from downstairs something new, something different. A puzzle to solve.
A flip of a switch and the hall lights come on.
Nothing there.
Her stuffed bunny with the disproportionately long arms and legs is held close but not because she is frightened.
Faye is never frightened.
She has to reach up to hold the wooden banister as she walks down the curved stairs, her fingertips fitting between the inlays of the bowed wood. Her bare feet are silent on the soft carpeted steps.
Through the living room, to the back kitchen, where the glass-paned French doors are missing a pane of glass.
She smiles, realizing how well that rhymes with “pain in the ass.” The door is closed but unlocked.
The door is never unlocked.
Her smile flees, her heart thumping as fast as if she had finished a race and before she can turn around, a shadow swallows her.
A shad
ow in the shape of a man.
A large man.
For the first time in her young life, she recognizes fear.
She is not alone.
She is so alone.
And there is no one there to save her.
She closes her eyes, the drowning drone of the gnats so loud she feels she might vomit, the poisonous warmth of the dark hands reaching out to take her when –
A body slammed into her from behind, driving her forward.
“Come on!”
Donavon!
She ran, almost tripping on the banner she still carried, the arm around her suddenly at her lower back. She was shoved, her feet leaving the ground, body propelled forward. Bracing herself, she hit, her elbows skidding across rough bits of bark and sawdust.
The towering line collapsed, hitting the ground with a tumultuous thud, more sawdust and dirt puffing from the ground in a thick cloud. It now looked like a roller coaster where part of the track had inexplicably collapsed, the jagged edge of the remaining line ending abruptly.
Faye scooted herself further beneath the remaining rail, her breath ragged. She wiped the water from her eyes – from the dust, not the memories. The buzzing, she realized, had come from the electrical lines that were now severed in so many places.
“Are you okay?” she asked. And then she realized the man next to her – the man who had saved her – was not Donavon.
Grey wiped blood from his eye, huddled beside her. “I’m, yeah, I’m … okay.” He had a gash on his left eyebrow that continued to seep.
More equipment came crashing down further away in the building, the ground below them not finished with its quaking.
Grey glanced at the rickety legs they sat beneath, metal railings extending to the conveyor line above.
“We can’t stay here,” he said.
Faye tore off her shirt, buttons ripping open, and reached out, pressing it to Grey’s swelling forehead. “You’re bleeding. Badly.”
She wore a white tank top beneath but it wasn’t her figure Grey was staring at, it was her tattoo. More of the demon she carried with her at all times was now visible, wrestling down her right shoulder and continuing beneath her shirt. “It’s just ink. It won’t bite, I promise.”
Grey breathed out a smile, putting his hands over hers for a moment as she let him take the shirt, applying pressure. He was looking at her as if studying her eyes, her face, her hair – so out of sorts at the moment.
As close as they were to each other it was easy for her to lean in and kiss him full on the lips. He sat up straighter but she broke the kiss before his eyes had adjusted to his shock.
“Thank you,” she said. “You saved my life.”
He nodded, struggling for words. “We’re not out yet,” he finally managed.
As if on cue, a low rumble sounded behind them, different from the throaty roar of the earth. Saws and blades came to life above in a deafening thrum, attached to the gaping mouth of the machine the assembly line fed into.
“No!”
Faye scrambled from beneath the legs, shielding her eyes with the banner from the wood chips which sprayed down at her. The last tree on the assembly line was being devoured by the machine above.
“No, no, no!”
A ripple in the earth spilled Faye forward, her feet giving out. She clung to the railing of the line she had stood upon only moments before. Tears made her vision blur.
They were failing. In epic proportion.
Something chugged above her and Faye was suddenly swept off her feet, the sensation not unlike being pulled from a boat on skis. She rose into the air, eyes wide, her side banging against the rail, knocking the breath from her.
Her banner – it was caught in the machine.
Spinning discs and blades several feet in diameter buzzed their death chant as the banner began to disintegrate between them. Faye heard Grey shouting but couldn’t make out his words.
She released her grip on the pole but felt the polyvinyl fabric wrap around her hand, cinching it in, her arm almost pulled from its socket. Still she rose toward those grinning metallic teeth.
“I’m not afraid,” she shouted, ripping at the fabric with her other hand. Her whole body was raised high enough that she could see the pounding of metal teeth, the gnats back in her ears in the form of rotating blades.
At the last second the fabric tore free, releasing her from its grip. She fell, hitting again against the rail before tumbling to the ground on her back.
She lay there, the world breaking around her, waiting to see if her body would allow her to move. Above, shredded strings of red ribbon floated down like tufts of falling snow, the remnants of all she believed in, the death of innocence.
Like watching blood fall from the sky.
Verse XXVIII.
Dugan gripped the railing of the bed, his chest heaving harder than the ground around him. He felt like he was vomiting glass, vaguely aware of the wet chunks flying with every forceful cough. His throat, lungs and gut spasmed, seeking to expunge an entity that wasn’t there.
Or that was everywhere.
Despite the burn in his larynx and his lightheadedness he pressed on, moving in front of the native child. To his surprise, the boy turned, looking directly at him.
His eyes were swallowed in white, as if his irises and pupils had been removed. The sutures from the scar on his stomach were broken open, fluid leaking like the trickle of gasoline from an already full tank.
Another coughing bout seized Dugan like a sneeze, taking the reins out from under him. It took everything he had just to continue holding on to the hospital bed.
White spots swam before his vision. He wasn’t getting enough oxygen, every attempt to suck air back in met with an explosive assault.
In his peripheral, he saw the child turning his outstretched hands upward, palms facing out. The muscles in his twig arms looked ready to pop from his skin, as if he were holding a heavy weight, his hands shaking.
A large crack shot down the wall at the end of the walkway, dust and rock from the ceiling beginning to fall. Dugan felt like he was coughing up burning coals, flames licking upward from his insides.
This is hell, he thought, and it’s everything I deserve.
He swung at the child with one arm, missing and nearly collapsing to the floor. Unable to straighten his body, he knelt at the bedside, the shreds of his throat coming up with each cough.
I’m coming, he thought. I’m coming!
He staggered to his feet, head bowed into the sheets where splotches of blood and mucus congealed in growing pools. He needed … needed to … quench …
Dugan bit into his left hand, tearing through skin and muscle and lapping at the blood that sprung from the wound. He sucked, fighting back the compulsion to retch, until he was able to swallow a second, and third mouthful, the thick blood slowly coating his throat on its way down.
“I’m coming,” Dugan said, his voice throaty and harsh. “And there’s nothing you can do to stop me!”
This time when he swung, his whole body was behind it. His fist struck the child in the side of the head, his forward motion rocking the kid’s neck and body to the side.
The chanting came to an abrupt halt.
Immediately the room settled, ground no longer shaking beneath them. The occasional thwump or clang of metal continued as heavy beds, workstations, and equipment, settled into their new placement.
Blake’s fist burned where he had connected with the boy. He wasn’t sure if he had ever hit anyone quite that hard and yet the child was still sitting, not yet unconscious.
Oso strode to the bed, overturning a chest of metal drawers in his path. He glanced uneasily around at the destruction that had taken place. Or maybe it was the sheer number of native bodies that now lay on top of, or buried beneath, odd equipment.
Dugan coughed into his arm, only vaguely aware of the blood dripping down the fingers of his left hand.
The child traced the scar on his belly with one
finger, raising it up to look at the seepage. His eyes met Dugan’s, no longer all white, dark pupils beading at their center.
“Inktomi,” the child said calmly, barely more than a whisper. “Fehener Takushkansh’kan. La’a’ione.”
With the words he sunk back to the bed, eyes still open but no longer seeing. His chest remained still, just another lifeless body amongst hundreds.
The crashing of equipment continued as men and women scrambled out from beneath machinery throughout the room. Dugan heard his name being called.
“What’d he say?”
Oso stared at the dead child in the bed with an eerie reverence.
“Oso? What’d he say? Something about the Shaman.”
Oso broke his gaze with effort, reaching for the marker behind his ear which was gone. He brought out a pen from a pocket and began writing in his book, ripping the page free.
Cannot trust his words
“I still need to know what he said.” Dugan lit a cigarette, holding the nicotine-filled smoke in his lungs as long as he dared. He dabbed the side of his hand against his vest, a splotch of blood remaining. “Fehener Takushkansh’kan, find the Shaman, right? What’s the rest, Oso?”
Oso looked down before finally writing.
Not find
Found
“Found the Shaman?”
Laaione is Death
“Death found the Shaman. Or is it a threat? Our death if we find him?”
Maybe both
Dugan turned his head to the side, blowing out smoke. “He wants us to think he’s dead. After all of this, seems a little pointless. What about Inktomi?”
A series of shouts caused Oso to whip his head around, his hair flicking into Dugan’s face.
“I’ll see to him,” Dugan said. He left the native, moving toward the noise which had progressively gotten louder.
Two bays back he found Morley lying on the ground, a large ceramic basin crushing his lower half. Amongst the wreckage of cords and equipment that had toppled onto him, a native’s body hung, face down yet arms extended toward him as if reaching.
